In the decade in which I've been perfecting the art of matching my styles to matching my organizational systems, I've come up with a lot of tools that work for me. While these tools keep my piling somewhat under control, my default piles still pop up and serve a purpose -- one that's useful to me, if not to the other people who live with me.
Three days a week, I finish teaching at noon, which (theoretically) means I have the afternoon at home to work on...whatever. On Monday, when I left for work, I left a bottle of nasal spray on the bathroom counter (to remind myself to call the pharmacy for a refill), a small pile of dirty clothes by the door to the basement (to remind myself to move the laundry from the washer to the dryer) and a variety of items on my dining room table that I half hoped would jump out at me to make sure I didn't ignore them.
It wasn't pretty.
As an empty nester in a two-income household, most days I'm the last to leave the house in the morning and the first to arrive home. This means I can pick up all my "reminders" before anyone else sees them, making it a workable (if less than visually appealing) system -- for me at least.
Occasionally, my husband arrives home before I do and discovers my "system." I'm sure that to him these appear to be miscellaneous items left carelessly lying about. To his credit, he never says as much, but I still feel like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar on a very cluttered counter.
When I have to (other people are home, company is coming), I use lists instead, but this shorthanded here-a-reminder, there-a-reminder approach nudges me more than any list does. And most of the time, I accomplish these tasks because doing the task the thing I left out reminds me to do always ends the same way: I put away the reminder item, leaving only clear space in its wake.
If our schedules ever change, I might reconsider this approach but, as long as I'm the last one out and the first one back, I don't see any harm in a few visual reminders, especially if they help me get the job done.
What less-than-ideal systems are you reluctant to let go of?
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